With grid penalties for Charles Leclerc and Sergio Perez, Max Verstappen was the favourite for pole. Let’s find out if he finished fastest or if someone else managed to topple him.
Q1
In Qualifying 1; Kevin Magnussen, Daniel Ricciardo, Esteban Ocon, Mick Schumacher and Nicholas Latifi were the slowest 5. K-Mag will be frustrated with getting knocked out, particularly given the fact that he was 17 thousandths of a second off getting through. Daniel Ricciardo will be so annoyed with his result. The McLaren Driver has clearly been enjoying his time in the states but on the track, it just isn’t working for him. He made a small mistake out of Turn 7 and that was enough to see him miss out on a spot in Q2. Another man that will be incredibly disappointed is Esteban Ocon. The Alpine has looked pretty good this weekend and given his teammate is taking a grid penalty, it was an opportunity to extend his gap over his teammate in the Drivers Championship. Mick Schumacher spun at the first corner on his final flying lap which highlights that he just hasn’t been good enough to stay in F1 for next season. Nicholas Latifi was once again the slowest, his time in Formula 1 is definitely coming to an end. Carlos Sainz set the quickest time in the session over his teammate Charles Leclerc by nearly 5 tenths of a second!
Q2
In Qualifying 2; Alex Albon, Sebastian Vettel, Pierre Gasly, Zhou Guanyu and Yuki Tsunoda all failed to make it into the top 10 shootout. Alex Albon did brilliantly yesterday. He got pretty much the maximum out of his Williams car and the only thing he’ll be disappointed about is the fact that he was only 27 thousandths of a second away from making it into Q3. Still, a brilliant effort. Sebastian Vettel will be happy with the pace of his car, but I doubt he’ll be particularly over the moon with his lap time. He was over 3 and a half tenths of his teammate in Q2, a gap we haven’t seen very often. Pierre Gasly doesn’t seem to be particularly happy with his Alpha Tauri at the moment, I get the feeling that he can’t wait for the season to end so he can move over to Alpine. Zhou Guanyu will be really disappointed. It looked like he was going to be taking part in Q3 for only the third time in his career but sadly for him, his lap time was deleted and he dropped all the way down to 14th. Yuki Tsunoda was slowest in the second part of qualifying; he also seems to be having problems with his Alpha Tauri. Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc was quickest by just under half a tenth over Red Bull’s Max Verstappen.
Q3
Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz took pole position after a brilliant lap. For a lot of this season, the top 3 have been within a tenth of each other and Carlos has always come out on the wrong side but this time, he found himself on the right side. He beat his teammate by +0.065s and Max Verstappen by +0.092. Sergio Perez qualified 4th, he was closer than usual to his teammate whilst the Mercedes due of Lewis Hamilton and George Russell qualified 5th and 6th. Russell missed out on beating his teammate by just 41 thousandths of a second. In 7th place, it was Aston Martin’s Lance Stroll. Stroll hooked the lap up brilliantly and due to grid penalties, he will start today’s race from P5! Lando Norris, who benefited from Zhou Guanyu’s deleted lap time, came home in 8th. A solid result given his McLaren’s lack of pace. Fernando Alonso struggled on his final run in Q3 and that resulted in him only qualifying P9. Due to his grid penalty, he will start from 14th place. And finally, Valtteri Bottas qualified 10th place after making it into Q3 for the first time since Hungary. Let’s see if he can end his streak of pointless races (it’s currently 9).
Starting Grid for the Japanese Grand Prix and my Qualifying grades
Carlos Sainz: 10
Max Verstappen: 8
Lewis Hamilton: 8
George Russell: 7
Lance Stroll: 10
Lando Norris: 8
Valtteri Bottas: 8
Alex Albon: 10
Sergio Perez: 7
Sebastian Vettel: 6
Pierre Gasly: 5
Charles Leclerc: 9
Yuki Tsunoda: 3
Fernando Alonso: 7
Kevin Magnussen: 2
Daniel Ricciardo: 1
Esteban Ocon: 1
Mick Schumacher: 1
Zhou Guanyu: 4
Nicholas Latifi: 1
My Predictions for the United States Grand Prix
Max Verstappen
Lewis Hamilton
Carlos Sainz
George Russell
Sergio Perez
Comentários